Burglary rates tumble in Ireland — but assault and sexual violence on the increase

Between 2014 and 2024, there was a 36% decrease in burglaries across the EU, with the rate in Ireland falling 66%

The combined annual number of burglary offences across the EU has fallen from 1.83m in 2014 in the 24 member states for which figures are published to 1.17m in 2024 — a reduction of 36%. Picture: iStock

Burglary rates in Ireland have fallen at a faster rate than almost everywhere else in the EU over the past decade, according to new figures published by the European Commission.

Official crime figures for EU countries for 2024 — the latest year for which comparable data is available — show a strong downward trend in the annual number of burglaries in the overwhelming majority of member states since 2014.

The combined annual number of burglary offences across the EU has fallen from 1.83m in 2014 in the 24 member states for which figures are published to 1.17m in 2024 — a reduction of 36%.

In Ireland, the number of burglaries dropped over the same time period from almost 27,700 to just over 9,300 — a decrease of 66%.

Only four other EU countries experienced a higher rate of decline in burglary figures — Bulgaria, Lithuania, Greece, and the Netherlands.

Latvia was the sole EU member state to record an increase in burglaries over the past decade.

Figures released earlier this year by the Central Statistics Office showed burglaries plummeted even further in 2025, with numbers down 13% nationwide to fewer than 8,500.

The EU figures also reveal that Ireland has a much lower burglary rate than many other countries, particularly in western Europe.

Overall, Ireland was ranked with the 13th highest rate of burglaries on a per capita basis in 2024 with 174 per 100,000 population.

The rate 10 years earlier was more than three times higher at 597 burglaries per 100,000, when Ireland had the eighth highest number of burglaries proportionately in the EU.

Among the countries with burglary rates more than three times that of Ireland in 2024 were Austria, Sweden, and Luxembourg.

In contrast, the lowest burglary rates in the EU are found in Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia.

Ireland has sixth lowest murder rate in EU 

Figures published by the European Commission provide evidence that overall crime levels in Ireland are not unusually high or low compared to the rest of Europe.

With 37 cases of intentional homicide recorded in 2024, Ireland had the joint sixth lowest murder rate in the EU, with 0.69 cases per 100,000 population.

The three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia had the highest homicide rates, while Luxembourg had the lowest.

Assault and sexual offences rising in Ireland 

However, some crime trends are upwards with the number of serious assaults in the Republic increasing over the past decade by 85% to 5,865 in 2024 — the fifth highest rate in the EU.

Like most countries in the EU, Ireland has also experienced a sharp rise in sexual offences, including rape, over the past decade, with numbers more than doubling.

The number of rapes reported in the Republic jumped from 480 in 2014 to 1,040 ten years later.

Eighth highest rate of rape offences

Those figures rank Ireland with the eighth highest rate for rape offences in the EU, with 19 cases per 100,000, behind countries like Sweden, France, and Finland.

The number of theft offences — the most common category of crime — in Ireland has fluctuated over the past decade but has increased every year since 2021 to over 71,400 cases in 2024.

It places Ireland in ninth position overall for thefts with 1,335 cases per 100,000, with rates more than twice as high in Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.